Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-7pwfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T21:11:31.144Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Article 50 and Member State Sovereignty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union was originally viewed by national constitutional courts as an important provision for upholding state sovereignty. The German Constitutional Court emphasized the provision in its reconciliation of the Lisbon Treaty with state sovereignty. The Czech and Latvian Constitutional Courts saw Article 50 as creating a balanced process for the exercise of the sovereign right to withdraw from the European Union. Prior to the Brexit referendum, there was little doubt in the literature that an Article 50 agreement could address the entirety of the future relationship between a withdrawing member state and the European Union. Since the Brexit referendum, the European Union has taken an increasingly narrow view of Article 50. This, combined with interpretations of other Treaty provisions, have both created significant disadvantages to the withdrawing member state. If—above and beyond natural imbalances in bargaining power—EU Law creates a position of inequality between the withdrawing member state and the EU in negotiations, then the pooled-sovereignty model of the European Union is called into doubt. Article 50 cannot simultaneously be viewed as upholding state sovereignty, whilst being exit-hostile to any state that uses the provision.

Information

Type
Developments
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by German Law Journal, Inc.